Flight 93 Memorial Design Worries Father

BellSouth.com ^ | 8/18/2007

[Paige]

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The father of a man killed when hijacked Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, wants his son's name withheld from a victims memorial because of renewed concerns that its design is centered around Islamic symbolism.

Tom Burnett Sr. served on a jury that picked the winning design, originally named "Crescent of Embrace," and said the request was "something I'd rather not do, but I can't get anyone to listen."

Burnett's son, Thomas E. Burnett Jr., 38, died along with 39 other passengers and crew when Flight 93 was hijacked and crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa., while flying to San Francisco from Newark, N.J. An investigation concluded the hijackers crashed when passengers rushed the cockpit and tried to regain control of the aircraft.

Nearly two years ago, designer Paul Murdoch changed the memorial's planned shape to a nearly full circle in response to critics who said the original crescent shape honored the Muslim extremists who carried out the attacks. The crescent is a Muslim symbol.

Burnett, of Northfield, Minn., said he is looking for is a "thorough, honest investigation" of the design and the elements discussed by Alec Rawls, a conservative blogger from Palo Alto, Calif. Burnett said many of his concerns were based on Rawls' theories.

Rawls says the planned memorial faces toward Mecca, Islam's holiest city, and contends that a planned 93-foot tower with wind chimes would act as an Islamic sundial.

Joanne Hanley, superintendent of the Flight 93 National Memorial, said, Rawls "bases all of his conclusions on faulty assumptions."

[BenLurkin]

BTTT

[Darkwolf377]

The desire to be "inclusive" in this and the WTC memorial is something I should have expected in these PC times, but it's really galling. Next up they'll be expecting Holocaust memorials to honor Nazi murderers as "fellow victims of war" or something.

A CRESCENT to honor the victims of Muslim extremism? I'd LOVE to read the DUmmicrat rationale for this crap. They're all nuts, these "we are the world" types, completely nuts.

[truthkeeper]

Am I the only one confused here? So is the memorial in the new circle shape - not Muslim symbolism - or in the original crescent shape?

[ishabibble]

>>The crescent is a Muslim symbol.<<

What else needs to be said? Make the memorial anything BUT a Muslim symbol. The dhimmi contingent will stop at nothing, they have no shame. God bless those brave people aboard United 93, and please please, go out and rent the video of the film, United 93. It will take you back to where you need to go, these days.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

pic here:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05251/567702.stm

way beyond offensive IMO

[knarf]

A very moving film.

I always thought a good idea would be memorial markers..upright granite or something, in the position of the seating manifest and all pointing in the direction of the plane when it went down.

That way everyone is recognized as a human being and no one is singled out for any speciel recognition.

A stele at the position of the cabin door could be simply inscribed, "Let's roll"

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

The crescent is a Muslim symbol.

That is because Islam is descended from a moon worshiping cult. And I am sick an tired of our pusillanimous PC government submitting to Islamic pressure groups. A giant granite hammer smashing Mecca would be a far more fitting memorial.

[JillValentine]

Tom Burnett Sr. has absolute moral authority on this issue because of what happened to his son. Right, Maureen Dowd?

Chickens coming home to roost, Dowdy.

[JillValentine]

Exactly right. Making this memorial in the shape of a crescent would be like making a Holocaust memorial in the shape of a swastika.

[ishabibble]

Very astute observation. I’ve always thought that the Twin Towers Memorial should be the twin beams of light that lit the sky for over a year at the site. So simple, all that needs to be said. For Cripes sake, it’s a memorial, and what would be better than those twin beams of light every single night, reaching into the sky?

[Stepan12]

I like the Ace of Spades redesign of the 9/11 Memorial:

The blogosphere gets results: new flight 93 memorial announced

Gee willickers. That was fast!

A spokesman for the new design said that the panel wanted to avoid all controvery or symbols of Islamism in the new design, and so chose a happy, uplifting central feature, the folded table cloth from a family-style Italian bistro.

"Everyone loves bistros," the spokesman said. "A lot of people think of Heaven as a nonstop family-style sharing of calamari and mussels in hot sauce, and we think this design symbolizes that. We're happy to have finally put this controversy behind us."

[wastedyears]

Laser light show demonstrating Gatling guns firing down.

[ishabibble]

huh? What in the hell does that mean?

[Blackyce]

They seriously chose a red crescent as their tribute to victims of Islamic terrorists? Wow.

[wastedyears]

Some of them over there comment that our gunships raining fire down looks like fire coming out of the sky. That’s what you get with tracer fire coming from a Gatling gun.

[Hugin]

Of course they wouldn’t dare select a design in the shape of a cross. The ACLU would have them in court the next day.

[Darkwolf377]

pic here: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05251/567702.stm way beyond offensive IMO

These people behind this are morons.

This "forgiveness" and "embracing our enemies" stuff is such garbage. This should be a memorial to those who fought back while they were being MURDERED by Islamofascism, not this hippy-dippy "They were ALL victims" flower power crap.

When did we get so stick stone stupid?

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Here is the winning memorial design (by Paul Murdoch Architects), entitled "Crescent of Embrace," rotated so that it points to the right:

And here is a typical Islamic crescent, taken directly from the Tunisian flag:

This is what it looks like when we lay the memorial design (made transparent) on top of the Islamic crescent: